Compute nodes and desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (September 29th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur.

* The access.cims.nyu.edu hosts will undergo maitenance that may result in slightly longer downtime than usual with these updates.* The snappy#.cims.nyu.edu series of servers will undergo BIOS updates earlier in the day tentative at 5:00pm (keep an eye on the "message of the day" on the snappy# servers for changes to this)

Compute nodes and desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (May 12th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur.

Linux security and software updates which require system-wide reboots of CIMS Linux desktop and servers, originally scheduled for Monday, February 22nd @ 7:00pm, have been rescheduled to Wednesday, February 24th @ 7:00pm.

Compute nodes and desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Wednesday (February 24nd). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur.

Compute nodes and desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Monday (January 11th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur.

Compute nodes and desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Tuesday (August 4th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The following machines have the updates:

Compute nodes and desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (June 11th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The following machines have the updates:

Compute nodes and desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (February 5th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The following machines have the updates:

Compute nodes and desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (December 18th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH 229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur.

These machines have received the kernel update and all of the software updates:

Compute nodes and desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (October 23rd). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH 229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur.

These machines have received the kernel update and all of the software updates:

Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (September 18th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH 229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Monday (August 11th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH 229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

A security flaw was discovered in Firefox which potentially allowed malicious web content to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running Firefox. A critical security patch to address this issue was released and pushed out to all CIMS systems this evening.

In order to begin using the patched version of Firefox, please restart Firefox by closing all instances of it and opening it again.

In order to complete the transition of Courant's primary server infrastructure to UPS power, a power outage is planned for Saturday, July 12, 2014, during which all compute servers housed in the WWH data center will need to be shut down for the day while CIMS's power panels are tied in to one of the new UPS systems.

However, our primary servers will be on redundant power before the outage, so access to files and mail should be unaffected, and our web servers should remain up throughout. That is, CIMS systems and network operations should confinue to function normally throughout the day, but the following computing resources will be unavailable from around 9 am to about 5 pm:

Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (June 19th). Updates will be applied to machines between 7:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any Linux systems before 7:00pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH 229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Due to a power glitch that occurred just before 4 pm, a number of CIMS computing services were disrupted tonight, including outgoing mail, web services, compute servers, which had rebooted, and access to home directories for a number of users. By 5:30 most services had been restored, except for an a number of computing nodes, which were restored over the course of the evening.

CIMS continues to experience severe network latency this morning. We continue to work with ITS, who manage the network infrastructure, and as of this morning the equipment vendor, Cisco, is working on it as well. Naturally, we hope this will be resolved soon and appreciate your patience.

Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Wednesday (January 15th). Rolling updates will be applied to machines between 8:00pm and midnight. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems before 8:00pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH 229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (Nov 7th). Rolling updates will be applied to machines between 8pm and 12am. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems before 8pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

10/15/2013, 12 pm: Please be advised that we experiencing problems with one of the file servers from which home directories are accessed. It is in the process of resharing home directories, so we hope services will be restored to normal within the next half hour or so. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (Aug 22nd). Rolling updates will be applied to machines between 8pm and 12am. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems before 8pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Shutdown of fileservers begins around 5 pm on Friday, June 21, and all systems should be down by 6 pm. At this point CIMS Windows and Linux desktop computers will be unusable for the duration of the outage.

Depending on how work progresses and how quickly network services to CIMS servers can be restored, the outage should last until some time between late afternoon and the evening of Saturday, June 22.

We strongly urge users to take this time off from their CIMS computer accounts and plan to work offline if at all by copying needed files to alternative systems. However, we plan to make some services available as best as we can during the outage. What follows is subject to change, so please refer to it again.

Services that will be available during the outage:

Wired and wireless networking throughout Warren Weaver Hall should remain available, so people should be able to use personal desktops and laptops in their offices.

Networking and non-CIMS systems in 715/19 Broadway should be unaffected. We will run temporary services on systems housed in that building as follows.

Access to user files:

After 5 pm on Friday, 6/21, users will be able to login to access.cims.nyu.edu and have read-only access to a backup copy of their home directory. Because this copy is from a nightly backup, it will only reflect changs made through early on Friday. If you make changes on Friday that you want to keep working on through the outage, you should copy those files to a personal computer before the outage (after the outage your files on the "real" systems will be back to their pre-outage state). We advise people to user an scp client to copy files to personal machines. Files under user data directories (ie, /data) will not be available.

If you login to access.cims.nyu.edu using an ssh client you may get error messages because the directory is not writeable, but it should work nonetheless.

Web Services:

We will continue to maintain our web presence using static content on all CIMS, departmental and related web sites. This too will be read-only, so dynamic content, cannot be updated. Also, changes made in the last day before the outages may not appear on these temporary web sites.

CIMS Email accessible on webmail.cims.nyu.edu:

The CIMS mail system will be shut down around 5 pm, and will remain unavilable for up to an hour while we bring it up on a backup server. CIMS Mail will only be accessible by logging into webmail.cims.nyu.edu. We cannot allow imap or connections due to the unpredictabitiy of the various imap clients and the devices on which they may run. That is, we do not want to risk mail on these clients to get out of sync during the outage with the possibility they can't fix themselves through normal operation.

New mail will reside in your INBOX

A read-only copy of your inbox as it existed on Thursday evening will be listed as INBOX-ReadOnly. Like with the home directories, this is actually a backup copy run over night.

Mail from Thursday evening through the shutdown will appear as a folder called INBOX-0621. This is all email that will have come in over the course of the day on Friday up until the shutdown, so it is basically for redundancy.

Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (May 23rd). Rolling updates will be applied to machines between 8pm and 12am. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems before 8pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Courant is coordinating with ITS to schedule a power outage in the Warren Weaver Hall data center for electrical work related to the installation of new UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) systems, which will provide emergency backup power to the entire data center. The outage will be substantial, lasting approximately 16-24 hours, during which time Courant's primary system and network services in Warren Weaver Hall will be unavailable. At this time, the proposed target date for the outage is Saturday, June 22nd, 2013. We will know more about specific timing as planning progresses.

This work must be scheduled for this summer, as the current UPS infrastructure for the data center is both obsolete and inadequate. Because this data center serves as the hub of Courant's computing and network services, the impact of this outage will be significant, but so will the benefits, though the objective is that users will never be aware of them.

During the outage:

While Courant's primary file and mail servers will be unavailable, and network connectivity throughout Warren Weaver Hall, both wired and wireless, will be out of commission, systems and network connectivity at 715/719 Broadway will remain available.

To minimize the impact of the outage on our community, fail-over equipment housed in 715 Broadway will be used to keep CIMS, Math, CS and research web services on-line, as well as to provide "read only" access to files and mail, enabling users to continue working using alternative storage space, either on their personal computers or temporary disk space Courant will provide.

After the Outage:

Following this initial phase of the work, a second outage of CIMS equipment will need to be planned for a later date to connect our circuit panels to the new UPS systems. This subsequent outage will be considerably shorter in duration than the first.

At present, we have limited backup power capacity protecting only our critical servers and disk systems. Once the transition is completed, however, this protection will extend to secondary services and computing resources, protecting long-running jobs and generally enabling us to withstand planned and unplanned power disruptions lasting as long as 15-30 minutes. The most practical advantage of this is that it will ensure smooth transitions between Con Edison and NYU Co-gen power in cases when such transfers are necessary.

There was an issue with incoming email fromoutside that may have resulted in some mailbeing returned to the sender. The issue has beenresolved, but if you were expecting email you have notreceived, you may want to have the sender resend it.Sorry for the inconvenience.

Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (March 7th). Rolling updates will be applied to machines between 8pm and 12am. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems before 8pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Recently there have been numerous file server outages that have caused widespread system disruptions throughout Courant. The disruptions tend to result in inability to log-on or a system becomes unresponsive for an extended amount of time. Sometimes there are residual affects until you logout and back in again. We want to assure everyone that we are working furiously on the problem. We have been in communication with Oracle about the problem for several days and their engineering group is assisting with determining a solution. We have been acquiring significant ammounts of diagnostic information during each of the outages and have been able to narrowed down the cause of the problem. We are currently taking steps to try and prevent it in the future. We are also in the process of building out an alternative infastructure that we hope will circumvent the issue entirely. In addition, we would like to assure everyone that their data is completely intact and this issue does not compromise the integrity of data stored on the systems.

We apologize for the disruptions and hope to have this problem worked out as soon as possible.

On Monday, January 21st, 2013, around 11pm, we will shut down the file servers that host users's home directories for updates. The patching and rebooting process of the servers is expected to last less than 2 hours. Home directory's as well as dependent services will be unavailable during this time. You are urged to save all your work and log out of all CIMS systems before 10:30pm to avoid any data loss.

Following up on the home home directory server updates, we'll be doing Linux system updates the following day. Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Tuesday (Jan. 22nd). Rolling updates will be applied to machines between 8pm and 12am. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems before 8pm. Many of the updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

August 17, 2012

On Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012, around 11 pm, we will shut down the home directory file servers that host all our users to do OS upgrades. The patching and rebooting process of the servers should take about 2 hours. Home directory's as well as dependent services will be unavailable during this time. You are urged to save all your work and log out of all CIMS systems before 11pm to avoid any data loss.

In addition, we're going use this outage as a chance to update all our Linux systems. Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED this Wednesday (Aug 22nd). Rolling updates will be applied to machines between 11pm and 4am. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night. Many of the updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

A bug introduced in the last Linux kernel updates have caused some serious performance issues. The COMPUTE NODES WILL BE REBOOTED this Thursday (July 12th) (desktops will not be rebooted) between 11pm and 3am to address this issue. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any of the compute nodes during this time.

Security and software updates are being pushed out to the CIMS Linux machines. Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED this Thursday (June 21st) (to avoid a reboot notify helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu and reschedule a time) in the wee hours of the night between 10pm and 5am to complete software updates. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night. The updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Security and software updates are being pushed out to the CIMS Linux machines.Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTEDthis Thursday (January 26, 2012) (to avoid a reboot notify helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu and reschedule a time) in the wee hours of the night between 10pm and 5am to complete software updates. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night. The updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Security and software updates are being pushed out to the CIMS Linux machines.Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTEDthis Thursday (January 19, 2012) (to avoid a reboot notify helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu and reschedule a time) in the wee hours of the night between 10pm and 5am to complete software updates. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night. The updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

On Saturday, December 10, 2011, around 11 pm, we will shut down the server that hosts faculty, staff and CS PhD student home directories to apply an urgent OS patch. The patching and rebooting process should take about 60-90 minutes. We will update this page as need if it will take appreciably longer.

November 01, 2011

Linux upgrades continue on the server front. On Monday (11/07/2011), we expect to take the following servers offline while they are upgraded to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6):

Euler Cluster (euler01-05.cims.nyu.edu)

The hosts will be offline starting at 1:00 P.M. and expected to be offline possibly till the next day.

We urge users to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems as early as possible. All the other general Linux compute nodes have already been upgraded.

In the event that your software doesn't run on the RHEL6 platform, we have temporarily set up some RHEL5 systems as general compute servers (but let us know so we can help migrate it to RHEL6):

stratus-1-11.cims.nyu.edu

stratus-2-11.cims.nyu.edu

stratus-3-11.cims.nyu.edu

stratus-4-11.cims.nyu.edu

stratus-5-11.cims.nyu.edu

The upgrades are part of a four phase process that started several weeks ago. The current state of each phase is listed below:

Security and software updates are being pushed out to the CIMS Linux machines.Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTEDthis Thursday (November 3, 2011) (to avoid a reboot notify helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu and reschedule a time) in the wee hours of the night between 10pm and 5am to complete software updates. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night. The updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Early this morning we have been experiencing problems with communication to one of our primary servers. Services are being restored, though we continue to see residual problems. We will continue working through the problems until things are back to normal. Thanks for your patience.

Linux upgrades continue on the server front. On Thursday (9/15/2011), we expect to take the following servers offline while they are upgraded to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6):

Energons (energon[1-4].cims.nyu.edu)

crunchy3.cims.nyu.edu

mauler.cims.nyu.edu

brawler.cims.nyu.edu

Upgrades are expect to last the majority of the afternoon into the evening starting at 3:00 P.M.

We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems as early as possible. The following hosts have already been upgraded to RHEL6 and are available as compute nodes:

crunchy4.cims.nyu.edu

opencl1.cims.nyu.edu

opencl2.cims.nyu.edu

cuda1.cims.nyu.edu

cuda2.cims.nyu.edu

cuda3.cims.nyu.edu

cuda4.cims.nyu.edu

In the event that your software doesn't run on the RHEL6 platform, we have temporarily set up some RHEL5 systems as general compute servers (but let us know so we can help migrate it to RHEL6):

stratus-1-11.cims.nyu.edu

stratus-2-11.cims.nyu.edu

stratus-3-11.cims.nyu.edu

stratus-4-11.cims.nyu.edu

stratus-5-11.cims.nyu.edu

The upgrades are part of a four phase process that started several weeks ago. The current state of each phase is listed below:

Security and software updates are being pushed out to the CIMS Linux machines.Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTEDthis Thursday (September 15th, 2011) (to avoid a reboot notify helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu and reschedule a time) in the wee hours of the night between 10pm and 5am to complete software updates. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night. The updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

Security and software updates are being pushed out to the CIMS Linux machines.Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTED on Thursday (August 11th, 2011) (to avoid a reboot notify helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu and reschedule a time) in the wee hours of the night between 10pm and 5am to complete software updates. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night.

Security and software updates are being pushed out to the CIMS Linux machines.Compute nodes as well as desktop machines WILL BE REBOOTEDnext Thursday (April 28th, 2011) (to avoid a reboot notify helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu and reschedule a time) in the wee hours of the night between 10pm and 5am to complete software updates. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night. The updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

This afternoon, between 2 and 3 pm, services were disrupted when one of our primary user fileservers crashed and rebooted. Some residual problems followed, including delays in mail delivery and communication problems on access2.cims.nyu.edu, which necessitated a reboot of that system.

On Friday, January 21, 2011, beginning around 9 pm, there will be a planned Cogen transfer related power outage that will disrupt CIMS computing services, including mail, Courant and departmental webservers, access to home and data directories, and remote access to systems for 2-3 hours, during which time we will also perform regular updates to file and compute servers. Please plan accordingly.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

On Tuesday, January 18, 2011, beginning around 11 pm, CIMS linux desktop machines will be updated and rebooted. Please save all work prior to the updates.

Security and software updates are being pushed out to the CIMS Linux machines (desktop as well as compute nodes). Many of the security updates have been already applied, but the machines will need to be rebooted for it to take effect. Compute nodes as well as desktop machines (to avoid a reboot on Thursday either notify helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu or reboot your desktop yourself sometime between Monday and Thursday) WILL BE REBOOTED in the wee hours of the night between 10pm and 5am to complete software updates. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night. The updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

October 13, 2010

A Linux security update will be applied to all the Linux computers(compute Servers as well as desktops) on Sunday night (October 3rd).

The Linux computers *WILL BE REBOOTED* as part of the process. Downtimefor compute servers is expected to be from 11pm-1am. Rolling desktopreboots are expected to occur between the hours of 1am and 5am.

For further information or questions, please send an email tohelpdesk@cims.nyu.edu.

This coming Tuesday night (08/31/2010) the CIMS Linux machines (desktop as well as compute nodes) WILL BE REBOOTED in the wee hours of the night between 10pm and 5am to complete software updates. In an effort to try and minimize any corrupted files or lost work, please save all your data and logout of any linux systems when you leave for the night. The updates have already been made on several linux machines in the computer lab located in WWH229. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The machines that have been updated are:

WWH229: pubbox10.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox26.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox34.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox45.cims.nyu.edu

Some significant software updates include (but are not limitted to):

linux kernel (automatic REBOOT)

Intel Compiler (test using the software in /opt/intel/compiler/next)

Enthought Python Distribution (test using the software in /usr/local/pkg/epd/next)Adobe Reader/FlashFirefoxTecplot

A full list of all software updates for linux and solaris is available on the update page.

April 08, 2010

Two critical service disruption announcements for next week:

Critical: On Wednesday, April 14th starting at 11pm, the following servers will be moved to a different network resulting in temporary service outage. The outage is expected to last less than 15 minutes.

Critical: On Thursday, April 15th starting at 11pm, the following servers will be moved to a different network resulting in temporary service outage. The outage is expected to last less than 15 minutes.

Late this morning and early afternoon, access to services, particularly mail and Windows sessions, were disrupted due to apparent network saturation caused by a number of user processes using a specific software package. We've identified the source and taken action to prevent a similar event in the future. However, we will also address the matter with ITS to determine whether there is something that can be done at the network level to prevent these types of events from occurring.

The mail/imap server crashed this morning due to problems with one of its CPU modules. The system has been restored to service. The module is scheduled for replacement tomorrow, which will involve a brief outage. We will post a follow up regarding a specific time. We apologize for the inconvenience.

This afternoon, between around 3:30 and 4:30 pm, we experienced an assortment of service disruptions, most notably with mail, due to communication problems between servers. We suspect the events may have been triggered by a problem with the network device through which the primary CIMS servers connect to NYU-Net and to each other, and have asked NYU-ITS to investigate. Systems and services were stabilized within an hour or so.

January 29, 2010

The Linux machines will be rebooted as part of the process late that night. To avoid loss of data, please logout of any Linux systems for the night. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer labs.

This is short notice and ahead of our scheduled updates due to heightened security risks. If you are running long/critical jobs on compute/desktop computers that can't be disrupted please email helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu to discuss options for a possible postponement.

As of 11:50 a.m., the license server for Matlab and a number of less critical packages is down. The server is managed by NYU-ITS (not CIMS) and ITS personnel are working on it and hope to have it restored to service shortly. If that doesn't happen, we'll update this page as we get more information.

As many users noticed, we experienced disruptions yesterday afternoon with access to home directories from CIMS systems. While we were able to more or less stabilize the file server, residual problems continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening, growing progressively worse.

We suspect communications problems between two servers may have been the source of the disruptions. Ultimately we've been forced to reboot the two servers late tonight after one of the servers hung, leading to outages of departmental webservers, and disruptions in access to mail, software, and home directories.

We hope to have systems back to full functionality between 2 and 3 am. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tonight the CIMS Linux machines (desktop as well as compute nodes) will have software security updates applied in the evening.

The Linux machines will be rebooted as part of the process late tonight. To avoid loss of data, please logout of any Linux systems for the night. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer labs.

The machines that have already been updated are:

WWH229: pubbox1.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox10.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox16.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox26.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox33.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox34.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox41.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox45.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox46.cims.nyu.edu

Some significant software updates include (but are not limitted to):

Linux Kernel (automatic REBOOT)

A full list of all software updates for Linux and Solaris is available on the software updates page. Email helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu for any questions in regards to these updates.

September 03, 2009

Tonight the CIMS Linux machines (desktop as well as compute nodes) will have software security updates applied in the evening.

The Linux machines will be rebooted as part of the process late tonight. To avoid loss of data, please logout of any Linux systems for the night. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer labs.

The machines that have already been updated are:

WWH229: pubbox1.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox10.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox16.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox26.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox33.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox34.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox41.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox45.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox46.cims.nyu.edu

Some significant software updates include (but are not limitted to):

Linux Kernel (automatic REBOOT)

A full list of all software updates for Linux and Solaris is available on the software updates page. Email helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu for any questions in regards to these updates.

In preparation for the new academic year, on Tuesday, September 1st, from around 10 pm until after midnight, the systems group will be performing numerous updates involving our primary servers. This will include a hardware upgrade of our primary home directory fileserver, and patches and reboots of various servers, including access.cims.nyu.edu, imap.cims.nyu.edu and the departmental web servers.

Due to the hardware upgrade, home directories will be anavailable for at least an hour, and mail delivery will be delayed while the server is down.

In addition to this work, NYU-ITS will perform routine maintenance on the nework switches that serve CIMS, both in WWH and 715/19 Broadway, which will cause network disruptions that could last up to several minutes as equipment is rebooted.

August 20, 2009

Tonight the CIMS Linux machines (desktop as well as compute nodes) will have software security updates applied in the evening.

The Linux machines will be rebooted as part of the process late tonight. To avoid loss of data, please logout of any Linux systems for the night. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer labs.

The machines that have already been updated are:

WWH229: pubbox1.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox10.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox16.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox26.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox33.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox34.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox41.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox45.cims.nyu.edu

WWH229: pubbox46.cims.nyu.edu

Some significant software updates include (but are not limitted to):

Linux Kernel (automatic REBOOT)

firefox

subversion

python

A full list of all software updates for Linux and Solaris is available on the software updates page. Email helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu for any questions in regards to these updates.

July 16, 2009

July 15, 2009

Due to a NFSv4 issue with our main NFS server (nfs4.cims), some services (such as mail) were unavailable earlier this afternoon. While these services have come back online since, we will need to perform an emergency reboot of the NFS server tonight. Remote login and IMAP services will be unavailable between midnight and 2am. We apologize for the short notice and the inconvenience. Should you have questions regarding this outage, please contact helpdesk@cims.nyu.edu.

June 02, 2009

The Matlab software update originally schedule for this Thursday will be delayed until Sunday night. The remaining updates are scheduled to occur on schedule, including system reboots of Linux Compute Nodes and Linux desktop computers.

May 29, 2009

On Thursday (06/04/09) the CIMS Linux/Solaris machines (desktop as well as compute nodes) will have software updates applied during the day and evening.

The Linux machines will be rebooted as part of the process late that night. To avoid loss of data, please logout of any Linux systems for the night. We urge people to test any packages that are critical to their work and let us know if they encounter any problems before the updates occur. The the updates have already been made on several Linux machines in the computer labs.

May 13, 2009

Around 2 pm, the primary file server for CIMS home directories experienced a severe load spike and had to be rebooted. We are still investigating the cause of the problem. Due to at least one bug in the file sharing software, restoring the system and all home directories to full service was a slow process, and because of the residual client-side affects, things were not fully stabilized until around 6 pm. During this time most CIMS computing services, including mail delivery and the web servers were disrupted.

We are investigating what caused the problem and improving the reboot process to reduce the amount of time it takes to restore all services in the event of a similar outage in the futture. We are also planning changes over the summer that will make other critical services, like mail and the webservers less dependent on home directories.

Should there be a recurrance, please check this page for information, or call systems support at (212) 998-3037.

April 07, 2009

On Wednesday night, April 8th, 2009, serveral servers will be inaccessible for a short period of time due to system maintenance. The license server for Mathematica, the Intel Compilers, and the Magma compute nodes will be down, as well as the Content Management System (CMS) for the CIMS/CS/Math websites. The services will most likely be restored within 15 minutes and the work is expected to be completed from 9 to 10pm.

Desktop machines in offices and labs should be unaffected unless they are utilizing the CIMS websites or one of the software packages mentioned during the maintenance period.

April 06, 2009

March 13, 2009

One of our main file servers has had a critical failure. Affected users are currently getting their home directories from a copy on a backup server. We are in the process of migrating those home directories permanently to another fileserver. Your patience is appreciated.

January 11, 2009

On Thursday, January 15, 2009, all the CIMS servers will be updated. The servers will be rebooted one at a time starting at 10:00pm. We expect the work to be done by 2:00am that night and residual affects to taper off shortly after. In addition all the Linux desktop machines and compute nodes will be rebooted as well (see the general announcements for further information regarding that update.) To minimize the risk of data loss and other potential inconveniences, we strongly urge people to log off from CIMS windows machines prior to the server shutdown and leave the computers turned on . Remote access to CIMS servers will also be affected. If you encounter any problems after the scheduled outage, please send mail to the CIMS systems helpdesk and we will respond as quickly as possible.

July 10, 2008

On Thursday, July 17, 2008, the CIMS samba server and Windows domain controller will be upgraded. The current system will be shut down around 9:00 pm and the new system will be brought up, assuming the server's identity. While the hardware transition will not take more than a few minutes, we expect there to be residual problems affecting all CIMS Windows machines (those on the CIMSSAM domain), which we will address remotely immediately following the hardware switch. To minimize the risk of data loss and other potential inconveniences, we strongly urge people to log off from CIMS windows machines prior to the server shutdown and leave the computers turned on . Remote access to CIMS home and shared directories using samba (ie, mapping files to home machines and systems not managed by the CIMS systems group) will also be affected. If you encounter any problems, please send mail to the CIMS systems helpdesk and we will respond as quickly as possible.

On Saturday, July 19, 2008, ITS will replace the network switch that provides connectivity to floors 10, 11, 12 and 13, of Warren Weaver Hall. The current switch will be shut down around 9 am. Installing its replacement and reconnecting all the cables providing services to the offices and wireless access points will take several hours, so we are advising people that the outage will last from 9 am to 5 pm, during which time, network connectivity to offices and the NYU wireless network on those floors will be unavailable. Once the work is completed, network access for office computers should be restored without intervention. However, if you encounter problems with office connectivity after the work is completed (ie, after 5 pm), you can try rebooting your desktop computer. Otherwise, send mail to the CIMS helpdesk if you encounter any problems. Remote access to computing and network services and access from other floors in Warren Weaver Hall and the Broadway block will not be affected.

On Saturday, July 26, 2008, ITS will replace the network switch that provides connectivity to floors 7, 8, and 9, of Warren Weaver Hall, disrupting network connectivity to those floors from 9 am to 5 pm, as described above regarding the higher floors.

On Saturday, August 2nd, 2008, ITS will replace the network switch that currently provides connectivity to the 6th floor of Warren Weaver Hall, causing an outage, from 9 am onward, similar to those described above. Since there are fewer connections to be restored, the outage should not last as long. However, the disruption will likely last well into the afternoon, so please plan accordingly.

March 16, 2008

On Friday, March 21, 2008, electrical work being done in the CIMS server room will require shutting down a number of computing resources for approximately 60-90 minutes, beginning around 8 am. We have arranged for alternative power sources to be temporarily installed to minimize the disruption to file, mail and web access. However, some or all of the systems providing these critical services will need to be rebooted at the beginning of the process. Thus access.cims.nyu.edu, smtp.cims.nyu.edu, smtp.cs.nyu.edu, imap.cims.nyu.edu, the samba server (which serves the CIMSSAM Windows domain), and the CIMS, CS, and Math webservers will be unavailable for 5-15 minutes around 8am. At the end of the work, access.cims.nyu.edu and the smtp servers will be rebooted again, a process that should take just a few minutes.

Desktop machines in offices and labs should be unaffected.

The following general access and private computing servers will be down for the entire time the electrical work is being done (approximately 8 am to 9:30 am):

crunchy1,crunchy2,crunchy3,crunchy4,crunchy5,crunchy6

linserv1,linserv2,linserv3,mauler,brawler,subversive

energon1,energon2,energon3,energon4

int1,int2,int3,int4

the euler cluster

mfdd8,mfdd7,visual,s1

the pyramid cluster, sphinx

the sejong cluster

the ensemble cluster

On Wednesday, March 19th, around 7 pm, the CIMSSAM Domain Controller and samba server will be rebooted with samba and OS updates. Access to CIMS Windows machines on the CIMSSAM Domain will be unavailable for a few minutes while the system is rebooting. If you have problems with a Windows machine after the reboot, please logout and log back in. If this fails, restart the machine, then login.

December 28, 2007

On Friday, January 4th, 2008, between 8 am and 9 am, network connectivity throughout the CIMS network will be disrupted while the main server room switch is shut down to upgrade its supervisor card. The actual outage should not last more than 30 minutes, but there will likely be residual effects lasting for several minutes beyond that while connections between hosts are being re-established.